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Educator to child ratios - Implications for Queensland services

Educator to child ratios outlined in the Child Care Act 2002 for centre based services (Schedule 1) will apply to Queensland services until 31 December 2015, with the following exceptions:

Services licensed before 2011 that use the 15-24 months age group ratio (1:5) will need to apply for the continued use of this ratio from April 2012. If approved the ratio continues until 31 December 2017.
The centre-based 1:7 mixed aged group ratio ceased from 1 January 2012.

Although educator to child ratios are largely the same for Queensland services until the end of 2015, the way they are applied in services is changing.

This change will allow services greater flexibility to innovatively configure service staffing across the service in a way that achieves quality outcomes for children.

Educator to child ratios are no longer the only consideration in determining appropriate staffing in a service. Services will need to ensure that:

minimum educator to child ratios are maintained at all times (section 123 of the National Regulations)
adequate supervision must be maintained at all times, including the required qualified educators (section 120 of the National Regulations)
staffing is arranged in a way to achieve quality education, health, safety and wellbeing outcomes for children (Part 4.4 of the National Regulations, National Quality Standard Quality Area 4 - Staffing arrangements)
consideration is given to the size and composition of groups, providing opportunities for children to develop relationships with other children and adults (Part 4.5 of the National Regulations)
they remain aware that educator to child ratios are minimum standards and when considering ratios and groupings of children, it is important to factor all seven Quality Areas and the possible impacts on a service's assessment and rating outcome.

Table 1 - The transition of educator to child ratios from 2012 to 2020
2012 -2015	RATIO	2016 -2017	RATIO	1 JAN 2018+	RATIO
0-24 mths	1:4	0-24 mths	1:4	0-24 mths	1:4
15-24 mths ¹	1:5	15-24 mths	1:5	0-24 mths	1:4
>24-35 mths	1:6	>24-35 mths	1:5	>24-35 mths	1:5
>30-35 mths	1:8	>24-35 mths	1:5	>24-35 mths	1:5
3 yrs <7 yrs	1:12	36 mths <school aged	1:11	36 mths <school aged	1:11
4 yrs <7 yrs	1:13	36 mths <school aged	1:11	36 mths <school aged	1:11
4 yrs <7 yrs	1:13	School aged	1:15	School aged	1:15
4 yrs <14 yrs	1:12
School aged ²	1:15
Family Day Care ³	1:7	Family Day Care	1:7	Family Day Care	1:7

¹ Applies if a service is approved by the Department of Education and Training to continue using this age group ratio.
²Means a child enrolled in schooling (Prep onwards) and will be attending in the same calendar year.
³Includes an educator's own children under school age until 2015 and then all children less than 13 years of age from 2016. From 2012, the 1:7 ratio cannot include more than four preschool age or under children.

1:5 ratio for 15-24 month old children

The Queensland Government successfully negotiated for existing services to continue using the 1:5 ratio for 15-24 month old children until 31 December 2017 as a transitional provision for Queensland within section 300 of the National Regulations. However, to be eligible services will need to:

have been licensed in Queensland before 1 January 2011
be educating and caring for a 15-24 month age group(s) immediately before 1 January 2012
be approved by the Department of Education and Training (the Department) to continue use of that ratio.

The Department contacted licensees in December 2011 to allow eligible services to apply to continue use of the 1:5 ratio through the transition pack online process. Eligible services will need to apply to the Department before 31 March 2012 to justify the continued use of this age group ratio. The National Regulations provide that a service can continue to use the 1:5 ratio until the Department has made a decision.

Mixed aged groups

From 1 January 2012, Queensland's 1:7 mixed aged group ratio ceased to exist. This is the only ratio to not be carried into the commencement of the National Quality Framework (NQF) for Queensland.

From 2012, services catering for children of mixed ages need to ensure the relevant ratio for each child's needs is maintained. This means that for each individual educator, the ratio for the youngest child in their care applies, even if another educator is in that room or with a larger group of children and applying a different ratio. However, an educator can include older children (from a different age group ratio) in the ratio of younger children. The diagram below illustrates how this may work for a single educator:

Table 2 -example of working with mixed aged groups from 2012

In the above example, the youngest child falls into the >24-35 months category, so the ratio of 1:6 applies for children in the same age group or above. However, if a child younger than 24 months is included, then the lower 1:4 ratio would apply.

Note that these ratio requirements will change in 2016.

Educator to child ratios for excursions

There is no explicit ratio for excursions included in the National Regulations. Rather, services are required to undertake a risk assessment prior to an excursion to identify any risks and how these will be managed and minimised.

The risk assessment must consider:

items to be taken on the excursion
the minimum educator to child ratio required under the National Regulations
whether a higher ratio of educators (or other responsible adults) is appropriate to provide supervision given the risks posed by the excursion
the proposed route and destination
any water hazards
risks associated with water-based activities
transport to and from the proposed destination
number of adults and children
proposed activities
proposed duration
whether any specialised skills are required to ensure children's safety.

While an increased educator to child ratio for excursions is not specified in the National Regulations, there is a requirement to adequately supervise children at all times. A thorough risk assessment should determine whether minimum ratios are sufficient to provide adequate supervision of children while attending an excursion.

For an optional template for this risk assessment, refer to page 173 of the Guide to the National Law and Regulations available on the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority website.

Educator to child ratios during children's rest periods

Existing services that have a rest period condition on their licence prior to 1 January 2012 will transition over as a condition on service approvals from 2012 for continued use until 31 December 2019.

Table 3 - Educator to child ratios for eligible services during rest periods
2012-2019
Age Group	RATIO
0-24 mths	Ratio needs to be maintained			1:4
15-24 mths	Ratio needs to be maintained			1:4
>24-35 mths	First 12 children	1:12	Then any additional children	1:6
>30-35 mths	First 16 children	1:16	Then any additional children	1:8
3 yrs <7 yrs	First 24 children	1:24	Then any additional children	1:12
4 yrs <7 yrs	First 26 children	1:26	Then any additional children	1:13
4 yrs <14 yrs	First 24 children	1:24	Then any additional children	1:12
School aged	N/A
Family Day Care	N/A

It is important to note that services educating and caring for less than 31 children can count one educator or volunteer as three educators for the purposes of maintaining the required educator to child ratios during rest periods.

This rest period provision is in addition to arrangements for all services where the Department of Education and Training (the Department) will take a risk-based approach to enforcement. Ratios and qualifications will be calculated across a service and a diploma qualified person may backfill the early childhood teacher for short absences and annual leave (section 135 of the National Regulations).

In addition to the educators required to meet the educator-to-child ratios in the table above, Regulation 311 requires the following additional staff members or volunteers to be present at the declared approved service premises during a rest period and be able to attend to children immediately (if required)

for a declared approved service with no more than 30 approved places-1 staff member or volunteer
for a declared approved service with at least31 but no more than 75 approved places-2 staff members or volunteers
for a declared approved service with 76 or more approved places-3 staff members or volunteers.

Educator to child ratios during staffing rest pauses or short absences

Existing Queensland services that transitioned into the NQF on 1 January 2012 are able to continue to use current short absence and rest pause provisions for educators until 31 December 2019 (section 313-317 of the National Regulations).

From 2012, this means services are taken to comply with relevant educator to child ratios if:

rest pauses are not longer than 10 minutes
an educator has not already taken more than one rest pause on the same day
there is a specified person (e.g. non-contact staff member or volunteer) present and able to immediately attend to children if required
only one educator included in educator to child ratio calculations is absent at any one time
the service is not operating under educator to child ratios for a rest period.

As with the rest period provision, the rest pause and short absence provision for educators is in addition to arrangements for all services where the Department will take a risk-based approach to enforcement. Ratios and qualifications will be calculated across a service, and a diploma qualified person may backfill the early childhood teacher for short absences and annual leave.

Rest pause and rest period provisions will not apply to any new service approved from 1 January 2012.

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This page was last reviewed on 03 Jan 2012 at 05:54PM